The Stolen Child(26)

my observations of life in the forest, complete with drawings of found objects—a diary of the best years

of my life.

My chronicle and calendar helped me track the passing time, which fell into an easy rhythm. I kept

up hope for years, but no one ever came for me. Heartbreak ran like an undercurrent of time, but

despair would come and go like the shadow of clouds. Those years were mixed with the happiness

brought by my friends and companions, and as I aged inside, a casual nothing drowned the boy.

The snows stopped by mid-March most years, and a few weeks later the ice would melt, green life

would bud, insects hatch, birds return, fish and frogs ready for the catching. Spring instantly restored our

energies, the lengthening light corresponding to our interest in exploration. We would throw off our hides

and ruined blankets, shed our jackets and shoes. The first warm day in May, nine of us would go down

to the river and bathe our stinking bodies, drown the vermin living in our hair, scrape off the caked dirt

and scum. Once, Blomma had stolen a bar of soap from a gas station, and we scrubbed it away to a

splinter in a single renewing bath. Pale bodies on a pebbly shore, rubbed pink and clean.

The dandelions blossomed from nowhere, and the spring onions sprouted in the meadows, and our

Onions would gorge herself, eating the bulbs and grass, staining her teeth and mouth green, reeking,

indolent, until her skin itself smelled pungent and bittersweet. Luchóg and Smaolach distilled the

dandelions into a potent brew. My calendar helped track the parade of berries strawberries in June,

followed by wild blueberries, gooseberries, elderberries, and more. In a patch of forest over the ridge,

Speck and I found a red army of raspberries invading a hillside, and we spent many a July day gathering

sweet-ness among the thorns. Blackberries ripened last, and I am sad every time to see the first potful at

our evening repasts, for those black jewels are a harbinger of summer's end.

The insect-eaters among us rejoiced at the abundance of the warm sea-son, although bugs are a

decidedly acquired taste. Each of the faeries had their own peculiar pleasures and preferred capturing

techniques. Ragno ate only flies, which he plucked from spiderwebs. Béka was a gourmand, taking

any-thing that crawled, flew, slithered, or wriggled his way. He would search out a colony of termites in

a rotting log, a party of slugs in the mire, or a maggoty carcass, and dig in and eat those disgusting

creatures raw. Sitting patiently by a small fire, he snatched moths out of the air with his tongue when they

flew too close to his face. Chavisory was another notorious bug-eater, but at least she cooked them. I

could tolerate the grubs and queens she baked on a heated rock until they popped, as brown and crispy

as bacon. Cricket legs tend to stick in your teeth, and ants, if not roasted first, will bite your tongue and

throat on the way down.

I had never killed a living thing before coming to the woods, but we were hunter-gatherers, and

without an occasional bit of protein in the diet, all of us would suffer. We took squirrels, moles, mice,

fish, and birds, although the eggs themselves were too great a hassle to steal from the nest. Anything

bigger—such as a dead deer—we'd scavenge. I do not care for things that have been dead a long time.

In late summer and early fall, in particular, the tribe would dine together on an unfortunate creature

roasted on a spit. Nothing beats a rabbit under a starry night. But, as Speck would say, every idyll

succumbs to desire.

Such a moment in my fourth year in the woods stands above all the rest. Speck and I had strayed

from camp, and she showed me the way to the grove where honeybees had hidden their hive. We

stopped at an old gray dog-wood.

"Climb up there, Aniday, and reach inside, and you'll find the sweetest nectar."

As commanded, I shinnied up the trunk, despite the buzzing of the bees, and inched toward the

hollow. From my purchase in the branches, I could see her upturned face, eyes aglow with expectation.

"Go on," she hollered from below. "Be careful. Don't make them mad."

The first sting startled me like a pinprick, the second and third caused pain, but I was determined. I

could smell the honey before I felt it and could feel it before I saw it. Hands and wrists swollen with

venom, my face and bare skin welted red, I fell from the limb to the forest floor with handfuls of

hon-eycombs. She looked down at me with dismay and gratitude. We ran from the angry swarm and

lost them on a hillside slanted toward the sun. Lying in the long new grass, we sucked every drop of

honey and ate the waxy combs until our lips and chins and hands gummed up. Drunk on the stuff, the

nectar heavy in our stomachs, we luxuriated in the sweet ache. When we had licked clean the honey, she